And the World Stood Still

Yesterday was my day off......from work.......at Kohl's.......
And like the good mother, wife, friend, person that I am, I had plans to fill it with all kinds of errands and Things To Do. There were playgroups to attend, grocery shopping to do, Shabbas food to prepare, birthday preparations to be done, phone calls to be made, medical billing to be done, piles to go through, bills to be paid, presents to buy and wrap, photos to be enlarged and framed, a house to be cleaned and organized, and the list goes on and on. Well.......... I accomplished one item on that list. And you know what? That's ok. Because yesterday the world stood still.
The item I accomplished was that I went to playgroup with Jonah. Our shul has a playgroup that meets on Thursday mornings and I don't usually attend because I have to work but since yesterday was my "day off", Adina and I planned to bring our kiddies to playgroup together. Which we did and my friend Channa even joined us and all was well and good in our worlds.
We came back from playgroup at around 11:30 and shortly afterwards Jonah CONKED out. He was sleeping so I figured it was a good time to get some medical billing in. So I worked on that for an hour.....two hours...... Jonah's still sleeping. I finish up the phone calls I needed to make for that (which I can't do when Jonah is around) and work on some regular billing, and Jonah is still sleeping.
Finally at about 3:00 or so he wakes up and is not quite right. He's complaining crying. No tears, no terrible sobbing. Just complaints. Like something is bothering him. Like he wants to go back to sleep maybe but at the same time, he can't. I thought he was probably starving because he missed lunch but he refused any and all food and drink. Even animal crackers!! I knew something was wrong then. He just wanted me to hold him and he wanted to "cry".
I called Shauli upstairs and we decided he may have felt a little hot. He went to Shauli and lay in his arms and after a short while, just fell asleep. OK? So I went back to working and doing miscellaneous things while checking on Jonah every so often and Jonah kept sleeping. He finally got up around 5:30 or so and accepted his bottle while lying on Shauli's chest. He drank about 8 ounces and promptly threw it all up.
And he was sweating and burning up. He would not eat or drink anything else and just wanted to be held so he could lie there and stare off into space.
So thats when it happened..... the world stood still.

Sure, I had a million and one things to do. But my baby was not feeling well and needed to be held. And I needed to hold him. And that was the ONLY thing that mattered.
As I was sitting there holding my burning hot baby I was vaguely aware for a moment in the back of my head that there were things to be done. But it truly did NOT concern me. At that moment, I could not have cared less if they ever got done. It's not as if I was holding him but at the same time my mind was going a mile a minute and I was getting worried about how would I get ready for Shabbas on time and this and that.

No.
I just sat there.
Holding my baby.
For as long as he needed me to.
For as long as I needed to.

And that's when I realized what being a Mommy is all about.........


*** PS - Jonah is doing MUCH better today and is almost 100% back to himself, Baruch Hashem.